Happy Christmas all. For any confused Americans out there, yes I am an atheist, and yes I love Christmas. It’s a Pagan holiday, appropriated by the Christians so they could convert subject peoples without having to force them to give up the traditions which bound their communities together, so the idea of an atheist celebrating Christmas is no more hypocritical than a Christian doing so. I just like the feasting and the tree and the lying in bed watching stupid movies part too much to give it up over the trifling matter of a mish-mash of sellotaped-on religious nonsense.

For any non-Americans out there who have no idea what that paragraph was all in aid of, they get awfully excited about that sort of thing over there, as far as I can tell, and try and make Christmas all non-religious by saying stupid things like Happy Holidays, when it’s not even a Christian fucking celebration to begin with. Celebration of the Winter Solstice pre-dates Christianity by many thousands of years anyway.

Anyhow, that rather splendid cover version up there comes from the excellent LY and SO on YouTube. They only have a couple of covers up there, but that one really is nice. It’s funny when that sort of thing starts happening. I can only imagine that more popular bands who get covered all the time find the experience generates a weird combination of fascination, pride, embarrassment and all sorts.

And… just to completely change the subject again, I am not going to list all the end of year’s that our bands have turned up in, because there have been too many. I try and get them up on Facebook and Twitter as and when they turn up, so follow/friend/stalk/whatever me on there if you are really that interested. Thanks though, of course, to everyone who has included any of our lot, because I do genuinely find and appreciate them all.

One little bit of boasting I have to do though is this: The Recommender recently asked music bloggers to nominate their favourite music blogs in the world and, somewhat surprisingly I have to confess, I finished joint fourth with Gorilla vs Bear. That’s joint fourth favourite blog in the universe as voted by fellow bloggers. This, I think I can say without seeming too vain, is extremely nice.

And so finally we come to our penultimate Friday Five of the year, and the official announcement of the album of the year vote last week. As you can probably tell from this week’s posts I disagree with all but about one of you about what the best album of the year is, but no matter. You wouldn’t need me constantly lecturing you about Acceptable Music Fun if you had all the answers already, now would you. Anyhow, drum roll please…

5. Broken Records – Let Me Come Home I picked this one myself so I am not at all surprised and extremely pleased to see so many readers vote for it. The excellence of this record doesn’t seem to have entirely stopped the hipster sneering from a few quarters, but I do get the impression that once folk have started doing a band down it can become rather contagious. Fuck these people, I say. And so do you from the looks of it. Good on you.

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4. Kid Canaveral – Shouting at Wildlife I don’t honestly know why this album isn’t in my top albums of the year, because I love it, but I think it might be down to how and when I listen to Kid Canaveral’s music, which is mostly live. In fact, had I not spent a sizeable chunk of the festival season driving Meursault about the bloody country I would say that I have probably seen them live more than any other band this year. Also, this is generally music to encourage the having of Fun, which is not what I listen to in the house all that much. It’s not just that they write some killer pop tunes, but the album itself is really well assembled and perfectly paced. They and the Scottish Enlightenment would probably be my Scottish bands of the year for 2010, I reckon.

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3. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Personally I find this album pretty dull, I have to confess. But if you look at the results of both this vote, the Readers’ Song of the Year vote and pretty much every tight-trousered list out there then I suppose I have to grudgingly admit that the majority of the internets seem to disagree with me. A very late spurt of voting carried this into third place ahead of Kid Canaveral, who seemed to have that spot completely sewn up. I have to confess this is something I rather resent.

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=1. Meursault – All Creatures Will Make Merry When Meursault did so well in the song of the year voting I kept saying to myself that of course they were going to get a lot of votes on this site of all places – it’s like the ultimate home court advantage. And that’s true. But if the home court advantage counted for all that much, you’d expect to see the vote full of Toad Records bands, which it just wasn’t – not even close. So I think it’s time to stop making excuses and accept that basically this is a fucking great record, bollocks to false modesty.

Also, of all the bands we have worked with Meursault have worked the hardest, for the longest, played the most gigs, recorded the most songs, and have never ever let me down on any count. So instead of making excuses for why they might have got more votes here than in other places, especially when that didn’t seem to count in anyone else’s favour at all, I think I should really just be saying well done and thank you. It’s been some year lads, well fucking done indeed.

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So, after possibly the longest post in Friday Five history, I can’t be arsed making up five stupid questions, so just list five things you are either very much looking forward to or very much dreading over the next couple of days. I am guessing that this will be a quiet one anyway, given it’s Christmas Eve and all. So happy Christmas everyone, and remember to drink massively, massively irresponsibly.

Looking forward to:
1. Dinner tonight, tomorrow and leftovers on Sunday.
2. Going round to Rory and Nic’s for wine and mince pies and lots of Festive Hugs tonight.
3. Going to the pub on Sunday to watch some Boxing Day footie.
4. The opportunity to laugh at and congratulate regular commenter and all round boorish oaf Rampant Chutney Consumerism for finding someone mental enough to agree to marry him.

Not looking forward to:
5. Tidying up the label accounts between now and New Year. BOOOO-ring!

I am looking forward to:
#Roast beef rather than turkey tomorrow lunch time
#Shovelling the drive this afternoon, it will help eleviate the boredom
#Boxing day football at Exeter, and the return of The Ashes

I am not looking forward to:
#The annual religious guilt trip and resulting nonsense
#The lack of booze (for some reason, even at 26, going to the pub is frowned upon round here)

I’m looking forward to….
1. Family endorsed drinking at breakfast on Christmas morning.
2. My Mums Christmas dinner, I missed it last year due to being at the in-laws. Her Bread sauce is to die for.
3. Morecambe and Wise/The Two Ronnies on TV
4. My sisters child like enthusiasm for Christmas (she’s 24)
5. Bumping in to random folks down the pup on Christmas Eve

I’m NOT looking forward to….
1. The bus journey home, 2hours of uncomfortable mind numbing hell.
2. The same fucking shit adverts for kitchen sales/holidays/ringtones on TV
3. Midnight Mass, I’m an adult now with my own views on this, I could put my foot down and say I’m not going but even my non-religious Mum tags along with us Papes and theres free wine and cake afterwards in the church hall.
4. My sisters child like enthusiasm for Christmas waking me up at 8am on Christmas morning when I have a hangover.
5. Bumping in to random folks down the pub on Christmas Eve.

1. Christmas food – roast beef at chez ours too – plus ridiculous quantities of everything else
2. Christmas fun with a 3.5 year old who’s just beginning to get Christmas
3. First Christmas for the other growl sprog – he doesn’t know or care what’s going on
4. Family, relaxing, all that stuff y’know

Not looking fwd:
5. Hardly being able to drink anything due to need to drive relatives home afterwards, but small price to pay

Am I at work today? Yes – otherwise I probably wouldn’t be typing this right now.

We’re having roast lamb on Christmas Day. We would have had goose or something like that, but our oven was out of action for almost a month and only repaired yesterday so we didn’t have time to order anything posh from the butcher’s and had to make do with whatever we could find in Sainsbury’s yesterday. Mind you, Mrs. Toad’s roast lamb is a thing to behold, so this is not exactly an onerous compromise.

It’s traditional, if anyone can get the whole thing to go around properly and catch the mouse then they get waited on for the rest of the day…………it could be a problem if Mrs C wins as the household would grind to a halt

I like to think that combining 2 and 3 could result in some rather horrific injuries, leading to that other great British Christmas tradition: the unanticipated hours spent sobering up in A&E due to inebriated tomfoolery.

1. Turkey, Ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pecan pie, cheesecake…
2. Playing my grandparents piano badly and then having my grandfather play it better and telling me old stories of playing trumpet in dancehalls in the fifties.
3. Playing Nintendo 64, Sega, and whatever other old gaming system my parents have stored in their house from when I was a child. Probably find some old stashed porn too. Ah memories…

Not looking forward to:

1. Having to sneak booze into my drinks as my father is a reborn christian and frowns upon the whole good time thing. (I love my father but he used to be cooler, much cooler)
2. The no snow actually. I love the weather here in the place of my birth in the winter time as it is t-shirt weather. But of course, as a result, it does not snow. Kind of enjoy that whole part of the holiday that has been constructed for me by countless songs and movies. Oh well, I will be back in the land where I actually live now soon, standing outside waiting for the bus in the snow and dreadful cold cursing the fact that they constructed this great city in such a place. I may as well enjoy this weather while I can.

I’m looking forward to:
1. Seeing the kids opening their pressies tomorrow
2. Ten days off work
3. Going to sister-in-laws for family Christmas meal
4. Going to Edinburgh for a couple of days next week
5. Taking the kids sledging on Blackford Hill if the thaw holds off

Not looking forward to
1. Seeing the kids lose their temper at some stage tomorrow
2. Going back to work
3. Too much driving, not enough drinking
4. The smoke-infested house my parents call home – yuck

Its a glass half-full glass half-empty time of year! Whatever you’re doing hope you all have a good time. Congrats on the great ranking on this fantastic site too – well deserved. I’m in here every week and the amount of new music I’ve discovered and enjoyed has been a revelation.